People:
Reuben-Cooke 127 (Psych is in 126)
Meetings:
LMS:
Announcements: should also go to your inbox
Modules: contain all materials for that week
Assignment uploads
Grades
Successful students will…
The syllabus is…
My office hours:
Jihyun’s office hours:
No separate discussion section, but I’m going to try to avoid lecturing for 160 minutes / week.
Daily reading quizzes (50%):
ChatGPT Critical Review (3 x 10%)
Final exam (20%):
This is your job.
You are well-qualified and capable of excelling if you show up and do the work.
You and your classmates are colleagues inside and outside of the classroom.
Political science ≠ politics.
Deadlines are where they are for a reason.
You can request re-grades on assignments. But:
Requests must be made in writing and explain why they’re warranted.
New grades are independent of original grades.
I want to make sure that you have equal access to this course.
If you need to and haven’t already, contact the Student Disability Access Office (sdao@duke.edu / https://access.duke.edu/students).
Kernell, et al. 2021. The Logic of American Politics. 11th Edition, CQ Press.
Everything else that you’ll read, watch, and listen to will be posted on Canvas.
We have a lot of material to cover. Some of it will be difficult.
But! Every reading has a reason.
Reading for social science is different from reading a novel.
Read efficiently and strategically. This is a useful skill to practice and it is not the same thing as skimming.
Part 1: Foundations
Part 2: Institutions
Part 3: The U.S. Public
“Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don’t.” - Hans Noel (2010)
“Politics is for Power, Not Consumption.” - Eitan Hersh (2019)
How Democracies Die interview with authors (latter 2/3rds of radio segment) - NPR (2018)
Quiz recap:
Loosely, politics is the process of determining who gets what.
Politics is inherently conflictual.
Politics is everywhere.
Conflict is the natural byproduct of freedom and interest.
Conflict aids group decisionmaking.
Where else do you see politics? Here are some places I see politics:
Think about this the next time you get in an elevator.
Political science is the systematic study of politics.
Political scientists ask (and try to answer) questions like…
Some questions from my own work:
What’s a political science research question you’re curious about?
Empirical social science deals in models.
All models are wrong, but some are useful. What does that mean?
Let’s build a model of voter turnout. What are some factors you think matter?
Authority is the formal right to do something.
Legitimacy is the acknowledged right to do something.
Institutions depend on legitimacy.
Power is a few things.
First, power is the ability to get someone to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.
Common examples: lawmaking, contract negotiation
I have power in this classroom because I make decisions that affect your behavior.
But power is also the ability to exclude people and issues from the decisionmaking process altogether.
Common examples: agenda setting, voter eligibility
I have power in this classroom because I decide what topics to put on the syllabus.
And power is also the ability to affect how someone thinks about an issue.
Common examples: ideology, system justification, apathy
I have power in this classroom if I can get you to think about U.S. politics from the perspective of a political scientist instead of a lawyer or pundit.
Loosely, government is a set of formal institutions that exercise political power.
Government organizes and manages political conflict, directing collective action (we’ll talk more about this next week).
Differentiated by how consolidated authority is:
Differentiated by the question of who rules:
“The United States is a republic, not a democracy.” – someone advantaged by an undemocratic outcome
A republic is a form of democracy in which citizens elect representatives to govern.
Many flavors of democracy, not a binary.
U.S. political culture marked by multiple broadly-shared values that are often in tension.
Democracy is one: majority preference should win out
Here are two others:
U.S. politics often involves tradeoffs between these values. It’s hard!
Democracies rely on a combination of rules and norms because you can’t write everything important down in advance.
Let’s think about some norms in college classes:
Let’s think about some norms in U.S. democracy.
Mutual toleration…examples?
Forbearance…examples?
Less high-stakes norms…examples?
What is something political scientists knew that you didn’t?
What about some things political scientists didn’t know that you thought they would?
How many of you felt personally attacked by the idea of political hobbyism?
Political parties’ relationship with ideology?
Social science is hard
Einstein had it easy. Physics has laws of nature.
Humans are irreducibly complex. The social world is always changing.